Nathan Huang

I was recently asked about the first book character I remember finding myself attached to, and without hesitation I answered “Nate the Great, the kid detective.” While much of that connection was undoubtably due to his fantastic name, it also gave me my first taste of the whodunit, and it was good. Very, very good.

From there, I naturally fell into Encyclopedia Brown, then the Hardy Boys, then later, Holmes, Spade, and Marlowe. I played Clue, kept photocopies of the original Sherlock Holmes illustrations, and obsessed over the mind-blowing animated intro to Mystery! by Edward Gorey (which I still haven’t gotten over).

You could say I had a thing for mysteries, and I still do.

So, when I was I asked to illustrate a mini-mysteries book for Sterling, I nearly did a backflip in my desk chair. The book follows an uncle/nephew sleuthing duo as they solve various everyday puzzles around them.

It was great working on the project with Lauren Rille, Scott Piehl and Mina Chung. I would also like to point out that the fantastic pulpiness of the cover design is all thanks to Mina’s magic touch.

Here are a few samples of the interior illustrations I did for the book.